I Love Jesus, But I Cuss A Little

i love jesus.jpg

The first time I saw that t-shirt I was offended. Like any good Christian girl should be.

And I immediately started judging the person on my facebook friends list who posted it. Of course she would post something like that. The recently-divorced single mom whose status updates were littered with F-bombs on the regular. She was a trainwreck, so it was natural a post like that would come from her.

(Nevermind the shirt was true about me; but I don’t cuss “as bad as her”, and I would never admit it outloud or gasp! post it on social media!)

I scrolled past the garment disgusted and with an eye roll, but that shirt stuck with me for a few weeks.

The next time I saw it posted by someone else in my newsfeed, the more intriguing to me it became.

I reprimanded myself for judging the first girl; I had no idea what she was dealing with.

Besides, I may not cuss “as bad as her”, but there are plenty of other things I get wrong – like condemning other people for things they post on Facebook….

The more I thought about the statement on the shirt I realized… who was I to judge anyone? No matter what came after their “but” in that sentence.

Because ALL of us have something after the “but”.

I finally decided I kind of liked that t-shirt. What a beautiful a picture of authenticity and grace!

What if we all wore a t-shirt like that? What would yours say?

I love Jesus but I….

“doubt a little.”

“fear a little.”

“gossip a little.”

“lie a little.”

“steal a little.”

“watch porn a little.”

“disrespect my husband a…….LOT.”

Mine would say something like, “I love Jesus but, I’m still a work in progress. Imperfect. Deeply flawed, even.”

“…But wildly in love with, and loved in return by, Him. Unconditionally.”

I already know what some of you are thinking, “So are you saying Christians can just go around doing whatever they want? Are you just giving people a license to sin?”

No. And you’re missing the point.

Though technically, yes, Christians can do whatever they want. Paul says so right in 1^st Corinthians 10:23, “Everything is permissible–but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible–but not everything is constructive.”

Jesus’ sacrifice and gift of Grace set us free from the Law. What I explain in this other blog post over here, is that Paul is saying is you can do anything you want, but not everything is going to make you happy, or satisfied, or peaceful, or prosperous. AND, your actions have consequences.

But, being a “good Christian” doesn’t have anything to do with following a set of rules. It is about following Him, in whatever way He leads you.

So I’m not just telling you to do whatever you want. I am telling you to stop worrying about other people’s “buts”.

I recently heard Joyce Meyer say, “We never have enough information to judge anyone. We might judge their sin or their wrong behavior, I can look at someone and say, according to the word of God, I think that behavior is wrong, but I can’t judge them. I can’t judge their heart. I don’t know where they came from, I don’t know what’s in their heart, I don’t know how much revelation knowledge they have, I don’t know what’s going on in their life… Maybe instead of judging them I should have compassion for them.”

Like Joyce admits about herself – at many points in my life, I would have made a wonderful Pharisee.

Our enemy LOVES to keep us bound by rules and religion, guilt and condemnation, not to mention, the fear of other people’s opinions and/or being consumed with concern over what other people are doing, that we never discover the freedom that comes in relationship with Christ.
Follow the Leader

For people like me, who are actively engaged in following Jesus, we are each individually responsible for growing and changing as God, in the form of the Holy Spirit, convicts us and guides us to.

One of the main jobs of the Holy Spirit once He comes to live inside you, is to help you become the fullest picture of who God created you to be. And, this is far from an overnight process.

One simultaneously freeing and frustrating thing I’ve learned is that the Holy Spirit convicts different people about different things at different times.

He works in each of us uniquely and individually. So for you, using “foul” language may very well be a sin, if you’re convicted that it is wrong for you. But for someone else who is not convicted, it may not be. Just like it’s perfectly fine for some Christians to have a glass of wine, but for others, it’s something the Spirit does not want them to partake in. This could apply to smoking, or watching tv, or any other myriad of things.

There are times I feel convicted about particular things even my husband does not, or vice versa. But I’m not his Holy Spirit and he is not mine.

In my experience, one of the places the Spirit will lead you is to God’s written word, wherein there are very clear instructions about how God wants us to live – not for rule-following’s sake – but so we can live the healthiest, happiest, most-fulfilling and purposeful experience on this earth. He literally left us a Guidebook for how to get the most out our time here and for the greatest eternal impact!

But there are a lot of things God doesn’t touch on in the Bible, or He isn’t specifically clear on. It’s up to the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us in those things. It’s our job be listening, watching, discerning, and obeying.

(Sidebar: It’s true that sometimes the Holy Spirit might use you or I to speak to one another about a particular subject, but anytime we feel this is occurring, I would caution us to check our motives, and check our tone. Ask ourselves carefully, are we trying to play Holy Spirit for someone else? And if the Spirit really is convicting us to speak Truth-in-Love to a fellow believer, what is the condition of our heart in this exchange? Full of condemnation or grace? …And that’s all I’m going to say about that right now.)

This process and journey is something we will be walking out the rest of our lives on this earth. You will never be perfect or flawless this side of heaven. Neither will I.

And it’s when I slip back into trying to veneer things – to pretend like I’ve got it all together – I feel furthest from God, and furthest from other people.

Feigning perfection severs connection.

When I was at my lowest – real and raw and vulnerable – that’s when God met me. He knew the mess He was getting. While the truth is, “He loved me too much to leave me the way He found me”. There are some things about me – the real, raw, unpolished me at my innermost core – that He has left alone. I think He kind of likes those things.

Do I need to work on my temper? Yes! But I think He admires how fired up I get when I see people being mistreated or, being hurt by injustice or even hurt by the church….

In fact, I think He may have put some of that stuff there on purpose.

I spent most of my life running from the real me or covering it up because it wasn’t “ladylike” or it wasn’t “Christian” enough.

I’m done with that. This is who I am. Where I am. For right now.

Could I change in the future? Oh I hope I do! I hope I never stop growing and becoming more and more like my friend named Jesus.

One day, He might even convict me to never let a curse word cross my lips again, but today is not that day.

Today, I feel like He is more concerned with me meeting people where they are – in that same deep, dark place I have been. Where they are cursing at and about God because they feel abandoned or betrayed by Him. They are edgy and raw and bitter…. and I can relate to them.

Right now I feel like that’s what they need from me most. To know they are not alone. To know they are not the only ones who love Jesus but are hurting, or doubting, or cussing…. The only ones who aren’t perfect. And to know He loves them even still despite those imperfections.

After I started writing this blog, I came across this passage in the New Testament. Turns out, Paul had some things to say about this very topic to the church in Corinth two thousand years ago. He talks about “becoming all things to all men”, so that he might relate to them:

To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews [for Christ]; to men under the Law, [I became] as one under the Law, though not being under the Law myself, so that I might win those who are under the Law. To those who are without (outside) the Law, [I became] as one without the Law, though [I am] not without the law of God, but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became [as the] weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means [in any and every way] save some [by leading them to faith in Jesus Christ]. And I do all this for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings along with you. [1^st Corinthians 9:20-23 AMP]

Extra Reading

Paul also had some things to say about judging, criticizing and condemning other people (which I definitely know God wants me to keep working on):

Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don’t see things the way you do. And don’t jump all over them every time they do or say something you don’t agree with—even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently.

For instance, a person who has been around for a while might well be convinced that he can eat anything on the table, while another, with a different background, might assume he should only be a vegetarian and eat accordingly. But since both are guests at Christ’s table, wouldn’t it be terribly rude if they fell to criticizing what the other ate or didn’t eat? God, after all, invited them both to the table. Do you have any business crossing people off the guest list or interfering with God’s welcome? If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help.

Or, say, one person thinks that some days should be set aside as holy and another thinks that each day is pretty much like any other. There are good reasons either way. So, each person is free to follow the convictions of conscience.

None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters. It’s God we are answerable to—all the way from life to death and everything in between—not each other. That’s why Jesus lived and died and then lived again: so that he could be our Master across the entire range of life and death, and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other.

So where does that leave you when you criticize a brother? And where does that leave you when you condescend to a sister? I’d say it leaves you looking pretty silly—or worse. Eventually, we’re all going to end up kneeling side by side in the place of judgment, facing God. Your critical and condescending ways aren’t going to improve your position there one bit.

So tend to your knitting. You’ve got your hands full just taking care of your own life before God.

Forget about deciding what’s right for each other. Here’s what you need to be concerned about: that you don’t get in the way of someone else, making life more difficult than it already is. I’m convinced—Jesus convinced me!—that everything as it is in itself is holy. We, of course, by the way we treat it or talk about it, can contaminate it.

… So let’s agree to use all our energy in getting along with each other. Help others with encouraging words; don’t drag them down by finding fault.

(Excerpt from Romans 14, MSG)

That’s good stuff right there.

I know this was a super long post, so I appreciate you sticking with me. In case you got lost, I’ll reiterate the key takeaways:

We all have something after our but.

Stop worrying about other people’s buts.

Your buts – and your heart – are between you and the Holy Spirit.

And finally, I love you, even if you slip an f-bomb everyone once in a while. Ps, so does Jesus! 😉
Here’s another great blog along these same lines that left me clapping and cheering when I read it about a year ago: http://faithit.com/f-bombs-and-bikinis-what-it-really-means-to-be-a-christian/

God Will Never Give You Someone Else’s Husband

appy new year!.jpg

A friend of mine recently posted this image on Facebook and I was torn by it. While I wholeheartedly agree with its truthful message, I was a little jarred by its delivery.

In my past life, I would have reposted the image with hearty agreement, and all the judgment and condemnation I could muster to go along with it.

(Note: I’m not criticizing the poster for posting. I don’t know her story. Maybe there’s a woman pursuing her husband right now, and these words are coming from a fragile, threatened heart? I’m just saying in my past life, I would have clicked “post” from a place of self-righteous pride.)

But for me today, my heart is much more compassionate to the people who find themselves in these fallen relationships. I’m not justifying their actions or behavior, it’s wrong. But I understand it.

While I was married to my first husband, I had an affair.

Well, more than one actually if you count emotional affairs – which you should – because an affair is an affair. Anytime you give any part of yourself to someone else other than your spouse, you’re having an affair. My husband had affairs too. We were both so longing for the things missing in our marriage, we desperately sought to find them outside of it.

This isn’t something that I have ever talked about on social media, but if you’ve read my book “Now What?” then you already know.

My husband and I tried to fix our marriage at first but eventually it just became easier to get what we were looking for from someone else rather than from one another.

During that time, I convinced myself that God wanted me to be happy (not miserable like I was in my marriage) and this new person was who I had been waiting for all along. I reasoned that I had made a mistake in marrying my first husband and now God was making it right by blessing me with this new, perfect person.

In my moments of clarity, I would have thoughts like, Rachel don’t be an idiot, God wouldn’t give you someone else’s husband. That man isn’t yours to have. But what I’ve found about people contemplating or going through an affair, is that their moments of mental clarity are starkly fewer and far in between their moments of mental disorientation.

When you’re involved in an affair, you effectively take your brain out of your head, put it in a box, and slide it under your bed for a while.

You can’t think straight because you’re emotions are overpowering your logic and reason. Your hurt, your desires, the unmet, unfulfilled longings in the deepest part of your heart and soul are steering your decision making. You will literally do, think, and say anything to obtain what you think you are missing, the things you think are going to make you feel better – without considering any of the consequences. You imagine this person/relationship and all that comes with them is going to fix your problems and your pain, that they will fill up those gaping holes inside your heart.

But none of that is true.

Now don’t get me wrong, what you get from an affair, of course, is fun and exciting and fulfilling – utterly exhilarating, actually….

…for a very short period of time.

Eventually, the facade crumbles.

And, just like every other relationship you’ve ever been in, the honeymoon ends. That’s when you realize what you’re stuck with and what you’ve done and all the havoc you’ve wreaked. You can suddenly see clearly how much hurt and pain you’ve caused, not only in your own life and family, but in another family’s life and potentially, in the lives of everyone around you.

Listen to me: I PROMISE you the fleeting moments of temporary pleasure and ecstasy are nowhere near the weight of the long-term effects that an affair brings.

This is a tough topic for me to address because I know what this mental state is like. It’s like a heavy cloud of total fog; deception.

I know the crushing pain and disappointment and betrayal of a broken marriage is so real, that you will reach and claw and grasp for anything to try to numb and medicate that pain.

Since going through my own, I have had friends who have confided in me they are walking down the road of an affair. And while I’m glad they feel comfortable telling me – this is a totally judgment-free zone – I try to warn them it won’t be worth it.

But that isn’t something that you can even hear when you’re in that place. You can only figure it out for yourself. So it feels like a futile effort. What’s the point of even talking about it if I can’t open their eyes or change their minds?

One friend, who was having an affair with a married man, like I did, came to me in hopeful bliss. She talked about how her marriage had been dead for a while and told me about all her future plans with this new lover.

I desperately wanted to save her from the heartache I knew was in store for her. I assured her she would just end up alone and even more heartbroken.

“I’ve been there and done this, please believe me. Please use my experience as your lesson: This doesn’t work out for you, you don’t win, you do not get the guy. The married man never actually leaves his wife, no matter how many times he promises to.” I continued, “I get it. I know it feels good and right and blissful, like the most exciting thing in the world! But the aftermath, the amount of hurt and shame and regret that you will live with for years, is NOT worth it.”

Of course she didn’t listen.

She continued head-first into the affair, and when the guy continually made excuse after excuse for why he wasn’t leaving his wife “yet”, she eventually ended up with her heart broken.

So this is why I’m so torn, because I know I can’t stop the people in that place, on that brink, and it feels useless to even try. Why even bother?

You simply can’t know that it’s not worth it until you’ve experienced it for yourself.

Like trying to warn a toddler, “Don’t touch, it’s hot!” Does any toddler ever actually listen to that? (I’m not a parent, so I don’t know) But I feel like the answer is “No”. They have to touch it for themselves and get burned at least once, before they will learn and never do it again.

What’s more, I don’t even know what advice or consolation to offer you if you’re in that dark, lonely, hurting place in your marriage, because my marriage did not have a happy ending. We got a divorce. I am remarried to a totally different man.

I can recommend incredible marriage books and resources that could help you, but I only used these things as weapons against my first husband, they were not helpful for us.

I could tell you to seek marriage counseling, because I’m a big advocate for therapy, but, my ex-husband and I went to a year of marriage counseling and we still ended up divorced. So that’s not the silver bullet solution either.

Sometimes the idea of trying to help just feels overwhelming to me, like a lost cause. I just want to hug you and whisper to you, “I get it,” while you cry.

What I can tell you is that I am a completely different person now. I still deal with a lot of the same frustrations and issues in my second marriage that I did in my first marriage, but my perspective on them, on my husband, and on marriage in general, is entirely different than it was 10 years ago.

Before saying “I do” the second time around, I discovered I had an entire brain full of unhealthy expectations of what I “should” be getting from marriage and a marriage partner, and once I dumped those out and replaced them with right, healthy expectations, marriage got a whole lot easier for me. (And would be, no matter who I was married to.)

You see, no one human being is ever going to make you happy or fix your pain and problems. (Even though that’s the bill of goods you’ve been sold your whole life.)

It’s an impossibility. That’s not even what marriage is for or about. And once you stop looking to a person to do that for you, marriage becomes much simpler and enjoyable. Once you find a way to fill that emptiness outside of a human being, your disappointment in them dissipates. (Spoiler alert: I found out I could only be truly fulfilled through my relationship with God.)

There’s a lot more to this conversation, and there’s not enough room in this blog post for it. The entire 7th chapter of my book, “Now What?” is dedicated to everything I learned on my journey to remarriage. I recommend you grab a copy and flip to there if you are having, or have had an affair, or, you find yourself in a place of bitterness, resentment or discontent in your marriage currently.

Having had an affair is not something I’m proud of, and is not particularly comfortable to talk about. But I have found talking about the messy parts of my life makes people with similar stories feel not alone and gives them permission to share the messy stuff in their lives.

So…I don’t know if this blog will keep another person from having an affair, or save a family, or save a marriage, but if it does then it will all be worth it.

And PS, I’m here if you need to talk.

#RealTalk

Can we talk about something?

Life is messy. Like….really messy. #realtalk

My life was like a fairytale, until it wasn’t anymore. And I didn’t know how to handle that at all. I spent a lot of years angry and bitter at God. Today, my life doesn’t look anything like I dreamed it would, but I’m learning to love the way it looks now.

I started out polished and perfect (at least pretending to be) and knowing all the answers but came out the other side of the lowest pit of my life real and raw and vulnerable, asking “Now What?”.

I met and fell wildly in love with Grace – you might know Him as Jesus – and He’s been taking me on this crazy ride ever since.

I started this journey called blogging two years ago, having no idea what I was doing. (That’s how I do most things in life #realtalk) But they said I needed thing thing called a platform to be a successful author – and that is the deepest passion in my heart. I still have no idea what I’m doing, but that’s where I want you and I to walk together.

If you spend most of the time trying to figure out what the heck you’re supposed to be doing next in life life, you and I are on the same page.

If you spend more days hopeless rather than hopeful, overwhelmed rather than at peace, angry at and confused with God rather than praising Him, then you’re not alone, I’ve been there, and you’re in the right place.

I don’t have all the answers – but I promise to share the ones I have found for myself along the way, and maybe they can help you too.

Urban Dictionary Defines Real Talk as: used in the sense to affirm what someone is saying as a true, or valid statement and that they are expressing sincere thoughts and opinions.

This is what what I want the heart of this blog to be. In fact, I’m re-branding everything – my blog will be called “#RealTalk with Rachel Dawn” to coincide with the monthly video series I launched back in June.

In case you missed them, you can catch the replay of the first two videos over on my Facebook page (that’s where I go LIVE from), or click the links below.

Episode 1 – No body Likes a Negative Nancy
(yes, we literally streamed sideways for the first 10 minutes.)

Episode 1 – OVERWHELMED! (overcoming stress, burnout and overwhelm)

I promise to learn and get better every month. (I literally JUST figured out how to record in landscape mode….the struggle is real, you guys #RealTalk)

And, I promise to post the videos here to my blog after they are up moving forward.

Next month we are diving in to a little heavier topic: What do you do when God seems silent or distant?

I would love for you to join us! Stay tuned, date TBA.

I’ve also got some new blog posts coming (keep an eye on your email tomorrow) and a whole new website design underway. It’s going to be exciting!

Thanks for sticking around with me, I’m looking forward to some #RealTalk with you.

Unfinished: Waiting for What’s Next

“Not scared to say it, I used to be the one
Preachin’ it to you, that you could overcome
I still believe it, but it ain’t easy
‘Cause that world I painted, where things just all work out
It started changing and I started having doubts
And it got me so down…”

-Mandisa, Unfinished

Turns out Mandisa and I are practically the same person. Who knew?

Remember last month when I wrote to you about What to do with the Death of a Dream? It’s not that I was being disingenuous at that time, but I have a confession: The reason I felt compelled to share that message with you is because I am in a place where I am struggling with believing in my dreams right now. Those words I wrote to you were just as much a reminder to myself.

I don’t know at what point I stopped believing in my dreams. But it happened. And I didn’t even realize it had until I found myself crying into the pages of Mark Batterson’s Circle Maker, unable to bring myself to believe his words within.

Our enemy is sly, y’all.

I have found, in my life, the easiest places for him to attack me are in areas I have already overcome and told other people about, things I’ve even helped other people overcome in their own lives. Preachin it to them…

Because then he can plague me with these thoughts, Oh no! what if people find out I’m a hypocrite?! What if they find out I don’t have it all together, after I said I did?! I mean, I’m the girl who signs books, “your story isn’t over yet!”

That’s what Mandisa is talking about. I’m sure she had a lot of those same thoughts between her 2013 album “Overcomer” and her most recent, “Out of the Dark”, which includes the track above. The lyrics that come next in her song Unfinished, map a blueprint for us in this place:

“But I picked myself back up, I started tellin’ me,
‘No, my God’s not done, makin’ me a masterpiece’

He’s still working on me,

He started something good and I’m gonna believe it
He started something good and He’s gonna complete it.

So I celebrate the Truth: His work in me ain’t through
I’m just unfinished.”

Unfinished

Can I tell you something I’ve come to embrace – dearly – in this season of my life? My mentor, Jennifer Beckham, has been saying it for years, but I’m just starting to grasp it for myself, and it gives me permission to breathe: I’m still a work in progress.

Unfinished.

Which means I haven’t arrived. Even if I did write a book about coming out of one pit in my life, that doesn’t mean I’ll spend the rest of my life on a mountaintop.

And I have to stop beating myself up every time I feel like I take a step backward. (Can I get an amen?)

There is an interesting season after the realization of a dream or a pursuit, when it’s easy to feel lost and confused. An ok-what-do-I-do-next? season.

Subconsciously, I knew this before publishing my book. I think that’s why it took me two years to actually get it out after I wrote it…. some of that may have been deliberate procrastination.

I foresaw this line of thinking for myself: Ok, I have dedicated the last 2 ½ years of my life to this one thing, this one goal, this one mission. It gives me life and energy and focus. It allows me to walk every day on a clear path of obedience toward the mark God has called me. It’s me literally living in my purpose. And once it’s over, once the goal is accomplished, once the book is out and on the shelf, what do I do now? What will I do with my time and my life to feel significant and purposed?

What I didn’t foresee was how indescribably HARD these thoughts and emotions would hit me. And how hollow it would make me feel.

It’s only in writing this I called to mind a quote I heard years ago, “Never let a dream come true steal your dream.”

Meaning, don’t let accomplishing one thing keep you from accomplishing everything else God has created you for.

With each dream realized, you’ve got to set new dreams and goals for yourself. And I have not done that. At all.

(Sidenote: I acknowledge what I’m saying means I have been finding my significance in my work for God, rather than in my relationship with Him. A mindset I don’t think I understand how to transition out of yet. But that’s a whole other psychological and spiritual evaluation for another day.)

Dreams Do Come True

When I launched my book in November of last year, I was at an all-time high – it was the realization of a lifelong dream come true. I did not anticipate the series of emotional crashes that came next.

As I type this in retrospect, I think I see the dream-thieving pieces come together:

The month of my book launch, I expected to sell a certain number of copies and I came in at a fraction of that. I was devastated.

I sullenly reported the numbers to a friend in the industry and she told me my numbers were actually really great for a self-published author, which led me to doing some research. I found out most nonfiction books today – traditionally-published or self-published – never sell more than 3,000 copies in their lifetime. Usually no more than 300 in the first year.

So my numbers weren’t that bad after all, it was my expectations that were off. And I found solace in this fact at the time.

Looking back, that was exactly what my enemy wanted. For me to lower my expectations, and to keep lowering them. And keep lowering them. Until eventually, I didn’t expect much of anything above “average” for my future at all.

I had relegated myself to “this is just the way it is in the publishing world today” and I was “right on track” – with average.

YOU DREAMED BIG I have been anti-average my entire life. Repulsed by it even.

There is a delicate balance I surf between contentment and wanting more – feeling like God is calling me to more. But lately, it’s been just been discontentment and disbelief all around.

I find myself teetering on a ledge between believing for more, one more time, or just….settling.

It feels too hard and too painful to get my hopes up again; to stretch my faith and to see a vision beyond where I am now. It seems much easier to just settle for how far I’ve come.

You can settle at all different levels you know. There’s a temptation for it all your life, a pressure just to give in and give up hope. You can settle at $20,000 when it feels too hard to believe for $40,000, you can settle for $40,000 when it seems like $80,000 is out of reach, you can even settle at $100,000 or a million.

You can settle for 500 books sold when believing for 5,000 seems impossible. Which is the place I found myself.

So by the time I stumbled across Mark Batterson’s book, The Circle Maker, buried in an ebay sale pile of my mom’s, my belief and expectations were so low that the author’s words were a shocking wake-up call.

Inside, Batterson tells the backstory leading up to the launch of his first book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. He writes about a faith-stretching financial commitment he made and how God came through on it BIG time:

A faith promise is an amount of money pledged to missions above and beyond the tithe. It’s not based on a budget; it’s based on faith. Honestly, we [my wife and I] had no idea how we’d be able to give the amount of money we pledged…

…On the day we made the pledge, July 31^st, 2005, I blogged what I believed: “I have a holy anticipation that I can’t even put into words. I can’t wait to see how God provides what we promised.” Two months later on October 4, 2005, I landed my first book contract. The advance on that four-book deal was THIRTY TIMES GREATER than the pledge we had made.

…I was thrilled about getting the book contract, but I was even more thrilled about writing the largest check we had ever written for a kingdom cause.

In December 2010, he signed another book contract, the gift he and his wife gave on that advance was THIRTY TIMES LARGER than the original faith promise they had made five years before!

What miraculous provision!!

I read more of the story: In the fall of 2006, a week before his first book was set to release, Batterson was speaking at a men’s conference when he asked for God’s blessing on the book. He writes:

I was painfully aware of the fact that 95% of books don’t sell five thousand copies, but I prayed a circle around the book and asked God to put a multiplication anointing on it. I mustered as much faith as I could and asked God to help it sell 25,000 copies. Of course I threw in the obligatory “if it be Your will” at the end. That tagline may sound spiritual, but it was less a submission to God’s will and more a profession of doubt. If you aren’t careful, the will of God can become a cop-out if things don’t turn out the way you want.

Reading that paragraph, hot tears streamed down my cheeks. I realized I couldn’t even begin to believe my book would sell 25,000 copies. The revelation was startling me. When had my dreams gotten so small? When had I lost my faith in the God who called me to write this book in the first place? When had I stopped trusting Him and His power?

“It’s easy to give up on your dreams, on miracles, on promises.
We lose heart, we lose patience, we lose faith. And like a slow leak, it often happens without us even knowing it…” – Mark Batterson

Reading those words, I felt like God was begging me to believe Him for such a miracle. To trust that He could to the same for me.

This is the same God who restores sight to the blind, who brings people back from the dead, who created the entire universe from His mouth and His hands. It should be easy for me to believe He can get a book into the right hands at the right time, enough times, right?

But I had settled for that cop-out Batterson referenced, with these nagging questions in my mind, Maybe it wasn’t God’s will for my book after all. Maybe I heard Him wrong. Maybe I should have waited for a publisher to pick it up, instead of being stubborn and forcing it to fruition myself. Maybe the timing was off. Maybe I didn’t launch it right…

Guys, can I tell you something? Following God, and following your dreams, is not easy.

I don’t have an answer to the question, “How do you know when it’s God or when it’s you in your own head?” Because I still ask myself that all.the.time.

All I can do is try to get it right each time, and trust that He will make it right even if I mess it up. Because I do know this: my heart is always in the right place of obedience, even if my ears aren’t always hearing crystal-clear.

I’m still a work in progress. Unfinished. He’s still working on me.

So that’s the place I rest in.

This week I thought to myself, I don’t even know how to dream anymore. Which made me cry all over again. And feel lost and hopeless.

Here’s what I’ve learned (over and over again), when I try to do things myself, I get exhausted and overwhelmed and it doesn’t turn out so well. But, when I ask God into the equation and rely on His help, I get to relax and it all works out.

So here’s the first step I took: I wrote to God in my prayer journal that He would have to teach me how to dream again. That He would have to show me a new dream. And show me if my old dreams, that are hard to believe in now, are things that were never from Him that I should let go of, or if that’s really what He wants for me.

And because my heart is rooted in obedience, I won’t take another step forward until I hear from Him.

So if you need me, I’ll be here, writing to you and waiting for what’s next.

Is there a dream that God wants to resurrect [in your life]? Is there some promise you need to reclaim? Is there some miracle you need to start believing for again?

The reason many of us give up too soon is because we feel like we failed if God doesn’t answer our prayer. The only way you can fail is if you stop praying.” – Mark Batterson

What to do with the Death of a Dream

Have you ever given up on a dream? Has life ever beaten you up or beaten you down so badly, you felt it was pointless to believe in a better or different future?

In my book Now What? A Story of Broken Dreams and the God Who Restores Them, I talk about how after my divorce in 2011, I felt like my life was ruined. Like I had blown my chance at the dream life I pictured in my head, by mistakenly marrying the wrong person, and would just have to settle for whatever second-rate existence I could get from thereon.

A divorce is not only the death of a relationship, but the death of a dream.

And I have found the mourning process to be much the same as mourning the loss of a human being.

Have you ever found yourself in a place like this? It’s daunting, discouraging…depressing even.

There’s a verse in Proverbs that says,
“Where there is no vision, the people perish…”

My mentors once explained to me that everyone starts out with a big “dream circle” when they are young. We are all going to be astronauts and professional athletes and Broadway stars when we’re 6 – even 16 – but somewhere along the way to becoming an adult, responsibilities and bills and routine take ahold of us, and our dream circle shrinks to fit the reality of the life we are living.

Or, for some of us, a life-altering event shakes us out of the perpetual state of hope and optimism we have always known until all we can do is survive each day.

We stop being able to see more than what is right in front of us. Our dream dies. And we just exist.

That’s where I was.

I share this story in my book:

I have always had “vision boards” up in my bedroom. I was probably sixteen when I pasted together and hung my first one. I’ve moved them to every apartment and house I have ever lived in (and I’ve moved a lot!). I hung them when I was first on my own, living in a low-income apartment. At a time when I would often only have ten dollars left over at the end of the week for groceries, looking at those boards inspired me to keep dreaming.

Right in front of me I saw the pictures of the types of houses I wanted to live in, the cars I wanted to drive, the places I wanted to see, and the intangible things—children to adopt, relationships I would have, the impact I would make. And I was reminded that where I was, was not where I was staying. My circumstances and surroundings were only temporary as long as I kept moving forward.

The first place I lived after my divorce, I didn’t hang my vision boards up. I felt so far removed from those pictures, from ever seeing those dreams come to fruition. I just couldn’t see how that life was possible anymore.

When Barry and I moved into our first house together, I pulled them all out and cried. I still wasn’t sure I believed in them, but I was more disheartened that I had given up on dreaming all together.

When I shared this with Barry, he went out and bought fresh poster board and insisted we make new ones together.

Even though my old ones still had some things on them I liked, they were from a totally different place in my life. I took a couple things from them, but I wanted a new vision board to match the new vision in my life.

That’s the power of vision boards. When you constantly have the images of what you want your life to look like in front of your eyes, your imagination and subconscious mind go to work to make those things manifest in the physical realm. They will find a way, attracting ideas and people and opportunities to you.

While creating my new vision board, I found this one small quote I cut out of a magazine that meant the most to me. I don’t even remember what it was in reference to, but it said,

“Your dreams miss you.”

I get emotional just typing that now. Those four words were such a simple, sweet reminder to me that I was called and created for more than the complacency I was settling for.

I had dreams inside me just waiting to get out, but I had allowed myself to move far away from them. I had forgotten them, left them behind. I’d buried them in my day-to-day routine and busyness to keep my mind off what I had been through and the fact that I was stagnant in life.

My dreams missed me.

And I missed them.

Your dreams miss you.

I give you permission to dream again.

The next chapter of your life hasn’t been written yet and it matters how you finish. Live on purpose and scream to the world, ‘It’s not over till I win!’” – Pastor Gary Newell

So, if you’re in that place where hope seems lost and dreams seem dead, create a vision board for yourself.
When is the last time you let yourself dream? Given yourself permission to imagine life a different way?

I have always heard, if you want to get a big dream, get around big dreamers. Believe it or not, there are people in your life who see your potential more clearly than you do. Find those people. Spend time with them.

Whatever you do, do not lose sight of that vision, that hope – that your life can be better, fuller, more-fulfilling, more-purposeful than it is now.

As cliché as it sounds, you have seeds of greatness inside of you. I beg you, do not let them get buried in busyness and routine and monotony. Or disappointments, heartache and loss. Keep your dreams in the forefront of your mind, put pictures of them in front of you. And you will see them come to pass.

your dreams miss you.jpg

Wherever You Go, There You Are: How to Stop Running and Start Facing Life’s Challenges

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

That simple, yet profound, quote is one of my favorites. It plainly illustrates the truth that you can’t outrun your problems. No matter how far you go or how hard you try. Wherever you go, you will be there and until you deal with you, your problems won’t go away.

When I was working on my book, I had a vision for the second half to be a collection of stories from other people who had also been through what I called a “Now What? Moment”. A moment when everything in your life comes crashing down around you and you stare hopelessly at the sky asking, “Now What?”

My mind went to work right away, I could think of dozens of people in my life who had been through life-altering, dream-shattering circumstances like I had. I am beginning to believe almost every person on earth has been through something like this. So, the challenge wasn’t finding someone who had been through, but finding people who had faced those challenges head on instead of running. People who had – maybe even reluctantly like me – invited the redeeming, restorative power of God’s grace into those circumstances and come out healed and whole on the other side.

As I looked around me, I saw most people were just….running.

Filling their lives with things and activities and accomplishments and people to try and cover up or forget about what they had been through. I watched people bounce from relationship to relationship, job to job or even move across the country to try and “start fresh”.

Of course I thought about doing that too after my divorce, but that quote haunted me on repeat in my mind, “wherever you go, there you are”. I realized it wouldn’t do me any good to be anywhere else, or be with anyone else, if I wasn’t willing to face the mess inside of me.

So I did.

It was slow and painful and challenging. It looked like professional therapy and non-professional therapy sessions with friends. It looked like diving into books that radically changed the way I looked at and thought about the world. About relationships. About marriage. About God. Most of all, it looked like stopping the running, the grasping, and the pretending.

Pretending like everything was fine when it wasn’t. Pretending like I was over it, when I was certainly not. Pretending like there were no residual effects from the picture I held of my whole life being shattering to pieces.

Thankfully, I did find some other people who had been down this road, people who had wrestled with grit and grace themselves, and come out renewed on the other side. And I was able to tell their stories in my book. Their stories are wonderful and powerful and have impacted many lives already!

I met another person recently who has an incredible “Now What?” story. Her name is Kimberly Dewberry, and I’d like to introduce her to you now. Kimberly writes and speaks to help other people deal with the fallout of living with alcoholic family members. Having grown up with an alcoholic father and married to an alcoholic husband, she’s no stranger to this pain and predicament herself. And she’s well-familiar with the mess that comes out of running, rather than facing, the issue.

Here is her story:

I’ve never been the athletic type. I’m the type of person who enjoys lazy Sunday afternoon naps after church. I love sitting at my desk as my fingernails click away at the keys. I’m perfectly content sleeping in on Saturdays. Plopping down on my end of the couch after a long day at the office and watching American Pickers is my idea of bliss. I’m not an extreme exerciser. I’m not into playing volleyball on a co-ed team at church. I’m not one of those people who goes for a run in the early morning. However, I once could be called an expert in running of a different sort.

The first time I made the decision to run came soon after my Dad began drinking again after years of sobriety. At 16, I couldn’t take the uncertainty of living in a home with an alcoholic. Too many days and nights of walking on eggshells, being ignored, or having yelling matches became too much for me. I decided to run away from home.

It didn’t last long, eventually I went back. So I dealt with the life of being a child of an alcoholic the best way I knew how. I told myself I only had one year left of school and then I could escape and have a peaceful life.

During my last year of high school, I dated different boys, looking for some sort of stability and love I felt I lacked. And at 18, I married one of those boys. I found my escape. Or so I thought.

In truth, I had run away from one unstable situation into more chaos than I could ever imagined. I quickly had two babies and a life far less than I had dreamed.

I found out that running from one bad situation into another didn’t help my state of mind. The next eleven years brought heartache, depression, and thoughts of suicide. If it were not for the grace of God, I would have made a permanent escape.

The darkness of the night I almost took my own life couldn’t compare to the darkness I had in my heart. On my way to the bathroom, where I walked to search for some pills that would do the trick, I looked on my dresser and there laid a pamphlet I had received at work that day. A phone number was listed beneath the words, “Need help?” I knew I needed help. I stopped and stared at it for a short while. Thoughts spinning in my mind. Suddenly, I felt my heart flutter. I grabbed the cordless phone, picked up the pamphlet and walked into the bathroom closing the door behind me. God’s love interceded and I called a suicide hotline.

In my selfish desperation to run away, I hadn’t thought about the consequences for the children I would be leaving behind. It wasn’t my time. God had work to do in me.

I accepted God’s healing that night, I found salvation the following Sunday, but my walk with Him was short lived. When things became too difficult again, I ran—from my life and God.

I divorced my first husband and remarried. And seven years into that second marriage, the running shoes came out again. I went my own way. I could handle things on my own. I didn’t need anyone’s help. Besides, I thought God wouldn’t want anything to do with someone like me. Someone who couldn’t even stay married. Someone who seemed to fail at everything.

Soon after my second divorce, I reunited with my high school sweetheart and we married in the Fall. My expertise in running away from my problems seemed to have finally worked! This was like a fairytale!

It wasn’t long before I realized the love of my life, my high school sweetheart, was in fact an alcoholic too. I had only run in a circle.

Over the first five years of our marriage we went from being inseparable to living separate lives under the same roof. I had settled into a mundane existence because I was tired of running. I couldn’t face the idea of yet another failed marriage. I was determined to stay married regardless of how awful it was.

During my life of running my Mom and Dad had separated. Mom moved in with me while Dad floated between different family members and eventually became homeless. He lived under bridges and in various homeless shelters. We didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

Then God decided to put an end to my running. Without any inclination or warning, my aunt called us to let us know Dad had been found in a local hospital with a broken hip and terminal stomach cancer. He somehow remembered her phone number and reached out to her. The doctor’s gave him a month to live, which he would spend in my home on hospice care.

God used the last three weeks of Dad’s life to teach me about his healing grace, mercy, and forgiveness. I had run from the chaos, but I could no longer run from God. He opened my eyes to my husband’s alcoholism. Patrick’s drinking had intensified over the five years of our marriage, but I thought I could fix it. God opened my eyes to my co-dependency and controlling behavior. At 16, when my Dad’s drinking started again, I felt out of control so controlling people, situations, and outcomes became my way of life.

God used the pain and grief of losing Dad to make me see that the only way to truly live is to be fully connected to a gracious, loving, merciful Heavenly Father. God is not like an earthly father, with faults and failings that you can run from. His love and timing are perfect, patiently waiting for us to grow weary of running from his open arms.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Ecclesiastes 3:11

Thankfully, God not only saved me, but He saved my husband, too.

A few weeks after my Dad died, I was yet again nudged by God. This time, though, He nudged me to confront Patrick about his alcoholism. My husband immediately stopped drinking but after a few weeks, he made comments to me insinuating it was a temporary situation. Again, God’s nudging persisted. I followed His lead and asked my husband to leave.

God had very important work to do and we were getting in His way. Only God knew we needed to be apart and alone so we could rely fully on Him. We both did just that.

As a result, Patrick and I rededicated our lives to Christ. We each committed our lives to God on the same day, within hours. Neither of us knew it until a few days later when we agreed to meet to talk. I am amazed by God’s handiwork in our marriage! I give Him all the glory for saving not only each of us but our marriage too.

Out of all of this, I have taken on an entirely new identity. Despite the shortcomings of my earthly father, I am a child of God. I no longer have the need to control others because I no longer need other people to make me happy or feel satisfied. I have turned my life over to the care of my Heavenly Father. I no longer run away from problems that arise, instead I run to the One who saves me.

Jesus is my comforter.

He always has been and always will be.

And when life gets hard, I don’t have to run to anyone or anything but Him anymore.

A Little More About Kimberly:

I struggled for 25 years to cope with an addicted parent. I know first-hand how the serenity and peace of God’s redemption are keys to personal wholeness. In my weekly devotions, I share my story and provide valuable biblical principles for overcoming the effects of growing up with an addicted parent. Visit my blog or follow my social media!

http://www.kimberlydewberry.com

4 Things You Need to Know Before You Start Blogging

Have you ever thought about starting a blog?

I toyed with the idea once or twice myself before I finally did. As much as I love to write, I hate blogs. Everything about them. My thoughts are, who has time to read blogs? …much less keep up with writing one? AmIRight?

Plus, there are just so many out there already! As of 2013, there were 152 million blogs on the internet. [1] As of 2:46pm on Feb 17^th, 2017 there had already been 2.9 million blog posts posted THAT DAY alone.[2]

I figured if I did ever start one, I would make it about two months and never remember to post again. Fizzle out. Like so many other bloggers do. In fact, research shows the average blog is dead after a mere 100 days.

So I never started one. Until I did. Sunday was the two year anniversary of my first blog post.

So, why did I start one?

Because in one conversation with my mentor, she told me if I ever wanted to get a book contract with a publisher, I needed this thing called a platform, and blogging was generally a good way to start building one of those.

So, Feb 19^th, 2015, I opened a WordPress account and copy/pasted something I’d already written as a facebook post as my first blog entry. (I know, I totally cheated.)

But since that first post, I’ve learned a few things. Here’s what I want you to know, that I wish I had known then:

Know that blogging is not for the faint of heart. But it’s worth it.

Baring your soul for the whole world to see is not easy – even for us extroverts.

There’s a Special Thanks page in the back of my book and my editor’s name is first on the list. This is part of what I wrote to her: Turning over a first book (or maybe any book? I don’t know yet) for editing is kind of like tearing open your soul and inviting someone to walk inside. It’s exposing the most intimate parts of your inner self and trusting that person not to return pieces of you shattered and bloody.

It’s the same with blogging.

There are some posts I write that are so vulnerable I want to throw up after I hit the “publish” button. I don’t know if my words and my heart will be received appropriately. What if the message I was trying to convey is misinterpreted? Or what if I just sound stupid, or whiny, or self-centered, or entitled….

I vividly remember feeling this way about a post I wrote regarding race relations during some of the tense riots that happened over the last few years. (You can read that post here: www.RachelDawnWrites.com/blog/Color-blinded)

I have been super fortunate to this point that I haven’t gotten any extremely negative, critical or harsh comments about anything I’ve written. But I know as my platform grows, it’s inevitable.

.facebook_1460409929320 I heard a speaker at a writing conference say, “When you’re marketing anything in life – whether it’s chicken sandwiches or books – there is a 1% jerk factor in the world. One percent of people who are just negative and critical for the sake of being negative and critical. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. You could offer the best thing in the world, that 99 other people love, but this 1 person will find something wrong with it and a reason to complain.” Expect it, Accept it, Move on. It’s not you, it’s them.

Your message will resonate with some people and not with others, and that’s ok. You can get really derailed really fast if you try pleasing everyone with every post. That’s just not reality.

Pick you niche, hone your voice, find your audience, and write meaningful stuff for them. Period.

Any self-doubt, second-guessing, fear, uncertainty or criticism is totally worth it when someone responds to something you’ve written with, “me too”, “that’s exactly how I feel”, “I thought I was alone”.

Know that it sucks. No one will read it (at first). You will want to quit.

I understand that’s 3 things in one bullet point, but they are all the same.

Recently a photographer friend of mine posted: “Being a [creative] entrepreneur is just waves of ‘I just want to quit’, ‘this is crap’, ‘I’m deleting social media’, and occasionally, ‘Man, I was really made to do this.’”

When you spend hours working on one post, upload it, and keep refreshing your wordpress stats every 15 mins only to see that only 6 people look at it and no one comments….. you kiiiind of feel like throwing in the towel.

What’s the point of writing, of investing your time and emotional/mental energy, if no one even cares?

I don’t have an answer to this one. Because I found myself asking this very same question this week. After two years of blogging I have 33 “subscribers” to my blog. Even some of my most loyal readers, who tell me they love every post I write, aren’t subscribed and they don’t regularly share my posts with their networks. So I get it, it’s really discouraging.

But I’m learning there are ways you can hone your voice and your craft to increase those numbers, to increase your effectiveness.

I came across some incredible free training just this week that’s helping me with streamlining my posts to get more traction and shares. Ruth Surkamp founder of Elite Blogging Academy, author of “How to Blog for Profit: Without Selling Your Soul”, is offering this free series online right now. Check it out: https://ruthsoukup.leadpages.co/blogging-made-simple-2017-video-1/?inf_contact_key=bd1f84da626e39d8eb703404e962fc6161c1d1a4683a3ab7fb02ce596d2ae12f

I got tons of practical, immediately applicable tips from the very first video. I completely restructured this post I had already started after watching it and learning what I did. Thank you for that Ruth!

Know WHY you are blogging.

The quickest way to get frustrated and stop blogging is if you start a blog before you know why you are starting a blog. There are definitely tips and tricks and skills you can learn to blog more effectively, depending on what your goals are. But if you don’t know what your goals are….. you can’t hit them.

Ask yourself, why are you blogging? Is it just for fun? Are you just blogging for yourself, a literal personal web-log or diary? Are you blogging to tell stories to your close family and friends? Are you trying to use blogging as a source of income? Are you trying to expand your network/platform/reach/tribe/influence – whatever you want to call it – to get your voice and your message out there? Are you trying to make an impact? Change people’s lives? Raise awareness? Be an expert? Start a movement?

Even if it’s just to make people laugh or to feel inspired, you need to ask yourself: What is your purpose in blogging?

I came face to face with this question shortly after I launched my blog and my online platform, when Facebook asked me “What business am I in?” I stared at the blank box with the blinking cursor in it for a solid half hour while I asked myself, why am I doing this anyway? I came up with a pretty solid answer I shared in this post here: www.RachelDawnWrites.com/blog/what-business-am-i-in.

What it boiled down to in 160 characters or less was:

“I am in the business of restoring hope, igniting dreams, inspiring change, and leading people toward freedom.”

And out of that whole exercise came my business tagline, “Restoring Hope, Igniting Dreams”.

That’s why I blog. That’s why I study how and work to increase my platform. Because the more people my blogs can reach, the more people’s lives I can impact and influence for the better. Which is literally the reason I was created in the first place.

Blogging helps me move in the direction of my purpose. That’s a good investment of time and energy.

You need to ask yourself if it is for you.

Know You Have Something Worth Saying.

Who was I to start a blog? What did I have to say that people would be interested in and that hadn’t already been said a thousand times. Who would want to read it? How would I stand out from all the others? Those were some of the questions I wrestled with that February two years ago.

counter (2) Reading all the overwhelming stats about how saturated the world of blogging is and thinking about all the work, potential roadblocks, discouragements and frustrations could easily make you throw up your hands and decide blogging isn’t worth it at all.

Or maybe you’re stuck in that place I was asking, “Who am I to do this?”

This week I taught the high school service at my church. We are in the midst of an all-church journey on identity, wherein we are identifying the lies and labels in our lives – who we think we are or who the world says we are – and replacing those with the Truth of who God says we are.

Part of the lesson this week was the story of Moses and his own identity crisis. Born a Hebrew slave, raised an Egyptian Prince, on the run after committing murder, Moses found himself pondering life as a sheepherder in the country. When seemingly out of nowhere, God called him to be the hero of the story; to lead the people of Isreal out of slavery in Egypt. His response to God was similar to mine when God told me to write a book (and subsequently start a blog), “Who am I, Lord? Who am I to be the hero or lead a people?”

God’s response was simple: It doesn’t matter who you are, Moses, what matters is Who is with you and Who is sending you. He told Moses to go into Egypt and tell people “I Am” (Yahweh) has sent me. That’s all the credibility and power Moses needed.

You were created for a purpose. Just like I was. Just like Moses was. Uniquely. There are 522d171b57ab75f123db71e966e47bfa seeds planted inside of you, talents and abilities, to help you succeed in that purpose. Writing – sharing your thoughts through written words – may very well be a part of that.

Lysa Terkeurst says this in her book “Uninvited”: “Remember that there is an abundant need in this word for your contributions….. your thoughts and words and artistic expressions…. Your exact brand of beautiful.”

Other people might have similar things to say, but there is only one you. You are the only person with your story, your experiences, your worldview, your voice.

Don’t let your doubts, fears, or insecurities stop you from doing what you were created to do.

What if, instead of agreeing to the mission, Moses had told God, “There are so many other Hebrew men more qualified for this than me, I’m out.”

Would the Isrealites still be in slavery today? Would thousands of lives be entirely different? Maybe. Likely not. Likely, God still would have accomplished His mission, but He would have used someone else to get it done. He could have found someone else to stand up to Pharoah and say, “Let my people go.” But the one life that certainly would have been different would have been Moses’. He would have lived out his days as a sheepherder, which was not what he was created to do.

If you decide not to let those words that are burning inside you get out, could God still get that message out through someone else? Of course. But then you won’t be living out what you were created to do either. And what kind of living is that?

So, blogging might be hard and it might suck and maybe you’ll never have more than 30 readers, and most of the time you’ll feel like giving up, but if it’s part of what you were created to do, you must.

And when you feel like quitting, just remember why you are doing it, Who sent you, and that you have something worth saying.

[1] http://www.patrickkphillips.com/blogging/research-the-average-blog-lifespan-isnt-very-long/

[2] www.Worldometers.info/blogs

11 Love Songs for the Lonely

I remember the first time I went grocery shopping alone as my marriage was disintegrating. Grocery shopping was something we had always done together.

I was walking the aisles feeling pretty sorry for myself already when suddenly the PA system starts playing some 98 Degrees love song that sparked a memory of the beginning of our relationship. The season of it that was white-hot and whirlwind and so certainly God-and-cosmic-universe-ordained. The part of our relationship that was nothing like what it was now. The part when I could have never imagined I would ever be grocery shopping alone again for the rest of my life. But here I was.

I absolutely lost it in right in aisle 9. Right there between the butternut squash and the Bandaids was my utterly broken heart on display for the whole store to see.

Nick Lachey’s words only pointed out the stark difference of the fairytale I had signed up for and the reality in which I currently stood. In those lyrics were broken dreams and unfulfilled longings and the end of life as I knew it. It felt like my whole chest was being torn open with every new stanza.

That’s how powerful music is. It stirs memories and emotions and dreams and desires. It validates and magnifies the things we already feel, or long to feel.

You are likely being inundated with love songs this week as the clocks draws nearer to striking February 14^th.

For those of you in that dizzying, blissful, infatuated “honeymoon phase” of a relationship, you are elated. Those of us who find ourselves in a good, healthy, solid place relationally will be pleasantly satisfied and reassured. But, for anyone who is walking the grocery aisle alone for the first time or for the first time in a long time, this post is for you.

Using the powerful tool that music is, I want to make you a Valentine’s Day playlist. I’m titling it, “Love Songs from A Father” and it’s filled with lyrics that let me know how loved and held and treasured and valued I was when that was the furthest from what I felt.

Take a listen and rest this week in The Arms of the One who will never, ever, ever let you go:

Want More? My Book, “Now What? A Story of Broken Dreams and the God Who Restores Them” tells more of the story from the fallout season of my divorce, and also includes a “Now What? Moment” playlist that helped me through that season.

5 Things to Remember if You’re Feeling Less-than-Loved

Love.

That’s the theme of the entire month of February.

But for upwards of 50% of the population of the U.S., that’s not a theme worth celebrating. This month only serves as a painful reminder of heartaches and disenchantment from the Disney fairy-tale dream they were promised by today’s culture.

My divorce papers were served to me in February of 2011. I was 25. And I found myself crying out, “Now What?” from the hopeless pit of despair in which I sat. Many of you reading these words right now will be sitting in that same place as this February 14^th rolls around. For you, it’s more like Singles Awareness Day. And my heart aches for you.

My desire is to bring you some Hope to replace your Hopelessness in this season.
First and foremost, please know you are not alone.

The hardest part of going through a divorce – or even a bad breakup – is how isolated you

14361331_1692877487699717_9082564780245850773_o

feel. Like you are the only person going through this. You are the only person who has thought the things you’re thinking or felt the feelings you’re feeling. But you’re not. As I travel around the country, the more people who open up and tell me their stories, the more I realize there is always someone who has been through, or is currently going through exactly what you are going through.

The most comforting words you can hear when going through a struggle are “me too”.

It wasn’t until I read stories of other people who had been through divorce that I could feel like, ok, I’m not alone and I’m not crazy.

We also have a Father who promises never to leave or forsake us. I understand, when you’re at your lowest, how easy it is to feel abandoned by Him. But I learned firsthand how untrue that was when I was in my rock bottom a few years ago. You can read the story in my book, “Now What? A Story of Broken Dreams and the God Who Restores Them”
Secondly, keep reminding yourself your story isn’t over yet. You may be having dinner at home by yourself this Valentine’s Day, but it won’t be like this every year for the rest of your life.

.facebook_1444943586305

I get it. It’s really, really hard when we go through a season of loneliness, loss, or grief to believe the heartache we feel will ever end. It’s difficult to see past our present circumstances and see how things could ever get better – especially when blissfully happy couples are being paraded in front of you on every TV commercial and magazine cover all month long. For a couple years, even hearing couples vow “till death do us part” at weddings only made me roll my eyes. But things will get better, I promise.

One day you will look back and see that this was just a season. Grief is always just a season. Let that season last as long as you want or need it too, but in your moments of clarity, remind yourself it is just a season. It will come to an end. Even though it feels like it won’t right now.

I recently heard a speaker say, “Whatever you’re going through will one day just be a sentence. A single sentence. Right now the situation may be consuming your life. But one day it will just be a sentence.”

For me it’s: “I was married previously.” Even though that was a four to five year fallout in my life…. Today it’s just a sentence.

What you’re going through right now does not have to define the rest of your life.

Maybe you ruined your marriage. You can pinpoint the exact reason(s) it ended, and blame them on yourself. I’ve been there.

In their book “Happily Remarried” David and Lisa Frisbee say this, “As we work with women who have experienced the end of a marriage, one of the most common themes that emerges is a profound sense of personal failure. Remarkably, even when a woman ascribes most of the blame to her ex-husband, she still manages to internalize a strong sense of shame and regret over her own shortcomings. This can be true even in cases where the wife has been abandoned by a straying husband or deserted by an irresponsible one.”

Friend, I’m here to tell you, even if you are failing or have failed miserably in your marriage, you can learn from your mistakes and have the type of relationship you desire in the future. The key is learning from your mistakes, not repeating them over and over. Running from relationship to relationship just so you can avoid being single is not a recipe for success. (Trust me, I tried that!)

It sounds super cliché, but take this season of singleness to learn about yourself, who you really are, and what you really want out of life and out of a life partner before you just say “yes” to the next piece of eye candy, or the next “guy/girl who makes you laugh or feel good”.
Third, there can be purpose born out of the pain you’re experiencing right now.

jon acuff sometimes

I have learned really crappy situations can turn out to be great blessings in hindsight. Our struggles make us more compassionate and empathetic (words I didn’t even previously comprehend I was so far removed from them), which allows us to help other people who will struggle similarly in the future.

I remember the first time someone told me I saved their marriage by sharing the things I learned going through my divorce and preparing for remarriage, it made all those years of crappiness a little more worth it.
Fourth, you must derail the train of negative thoughts running the tracks around your brain.

When I went through my divorce, the biggest thing I felt – even greater than heartbreak or loneliness – was like a failure. And this stream of toxic, negative thoughts overtook my thinking. “You brought this on yourself. You’re not worthy of being loved. You’re too high maintenance. You don’t bring out the best in men. Just take what you can get, be thankful you’re loved at all. You couldn’t even hold your marriage together, what makes you think you can lead or impact people?” Does any of that sound familiar?

None of these thoughts are true. They are cleverly designed lies to drive you into guilt, shame and isolation – the place you are most weak and vulnerable.

Which leads us to our fifth and final point: be intentional about surrounding yourself with a healthy support group, especially in seasons when you feel yourself pulling away. Isolation is a slippery, dangerous slope. When we are left alone with only our own thoughts, it’s easy to get trapped in unhealthy patterns of thinking and feeling.

When you least feel worthy of reaching out and asking for help that is exactly the time you need to. Call a friend, go out for coffee, or just have them come over and talk with you.

Note: There is a balance to this. There are certainly times you need to learn to sit and be comfortable in your own skin; this isn’t about using other people as a crutch until you can find yourself a new beau. It’s about realizing there is strength is asking for support and letting people – who have no other agenda than just being your friend – be a friend to you.

You may be dreading the 14^th of February as the worst day of the year, and maybe you will spend the day locked inside your house crying your eyes out, but don’t be so blinded by your tears you lose sight of the fact that ultimately you have reason to be hopeful. Your relationship status is not all that you are or all you have to live for.

best days

Every year I pick a quote to put on the front of my planner, something I want to focus on for that year, kind of like a mantra. For 2013 the quote I picked was, “Some of the best days of your life haven’t happened yet.” When I taped it on my calendar that January, I had no idea that by the end of those 12 months I would be engaged and remarried!

There is so much hope in that statement. So here’s the final thought I want to leave you with today: Some of the best days of your life haven’t happened yet either. Even if this Valentine’s Day isn’t one of them.

Order “Now What?” by Rachel Dawn

What to Do Before You’re Ready

FB_IMG_1482273674356

“Do everything before you’re ready.”

-Jodie Fox, lawyer turned entrepreneur, co-founder of shoes of prey

I read this quote as I finally began #therechargechallenge. (A guided reflection/goal-setting program hosted by The Rising Tide Society on instagram)

Ironically, as I was reading the introduction in the guide, I was already thinking about my big takeaway from this year being: the year that I finally released my book was the year I was least prepared for it.

And then I read those words above and laughed at the irony.

This is EXACTLY what the last two years has been about for me.

On my journey to publishing, I learned that I needed a platform to go along with my manuscript. And the fastest way to get that was to begin a public speaking career.

Sure, I knew I would be speaking on stages on day, but I assumed it would be after I released a book and organizations would invite me in to tell my story and talk about the book.

Instead, after a couple phone calls to some mentors of mine in the Summer of 2015, I found myself booked into my first public speaking gig….. And no idea what I was doing.

But I did it anyway.

A little over a year later, just when I’d started to get my confidence bearings there, I realized I was running out of months in yet another year, and my book was still sitting inside my laptop in Microsoft Word.

So, I set a date on the calendar for my book release – I felt mighty and accomplished – and thirty seconds later I thought, oh Crap! That’s only 7 weeks from now!! I have way too much to do in just 7 weeks to make this happen!

But I just did it anyway.

When I didn’t feel ready, enough.

When I didn’t feel prepared, enough.

When I didn’t feel qualified, enough.

When I wondered of the book was enough.

It was a lot of late nights, and hard work, and frantic emails/phone calls, and learning marketing & design on the fly, and leaning into some great people who were willing to help this clueless, in-over-her-head, with a deadline, chick.

And it got done. Before I was ready to hit “publish”, I did.

And people’s lives are beginning to change.

Elizabeth Gilbert puts it this way, “Start before you’re ready and before you’re good at it. That’s how you get ready and how you get good at it.”

Oh how I’ve learned that’s true.